Medicare Rental Guidelines for time used

Can anyone tell me about the Medicare guidelines on time used during the rental period? I know it's 4 hours per night, but is that consecutive or cumulative. I rarely sleep for 4 hours at a time due to pain issues. I just got the machine last Monday and have not made it a solid 4 hours yet.

If you are talking about Compliance... it is pretty straight forward.

70% of 30 days has to be used 4 hours or more. If you don't, then compliance will start over and you have 90 days to become compliant or medicare will not pay for the machine. When compliant, medicare will rent the machine for a total of 13 months and then you will own the machine.

SerenaK wrote:Can anyone tell me about the Medicare guidelines on time used during the rental period? I know it's 4 hours per night, but is that consecutive or cumulative. I rarely sleep for 4 hours at a time due to pain issues. I just got the machine last Monday and have not made it a solid 4 hours yet.

It is a minimum of 4 hours within each 24 hour period. So, you can sleep a couple hours, get up for a bit, and then get a couple more hours. Naps count too, as well as practice time if you need to try using it while watching tv or reading a book. The machine does know whether there is somebody there breathing, so it won't count any time where it is left running with nobody there. If you are close to the 4 hours, try to get a little bit extra, even if awake, just to make sure it counts. If you are struggling to make compliance, talk to your doctor. They can help you with making it more comfortable as well as helping to extend the trial time if you are unable to make compliance right away.

Thank you for your response. It helps a lot to know I can do it in increments. I was getting pretty stressed trying to get to 4 hours in a row and having to get out of bed before that. I always go back to bed after an hour or so, so I know I'm getting 4 hours in a 24 hour period. Now if I can just get used to this thing.

Just remember, if the display says 4.0, the machine might round up or down,
so leave the mask on for an additional 6 minutes to make sure the round off is UP!

SerenaK wrote:Now if I can just get used to this thing.

Are you taking advantage of the resources here to adjust to your therapy? Are you using the free Sleepyhead software to monitor your therapy? Can you fill out your equipment profile and start a thread indicating any problems you may be having?

Lots of people here who have gone through the same thing you are doing and they can provide some good advice on a myriad of subjects.